"This guy is blowing me away with his posts - I'm just sorry I didn't start
reading his blog sooner."Who Moved My Truth?

"Sean is so right he is wrong. It's good to be wrong when you're right. Right?
Follow me? Follow Sean:"Ryan's Head

"Sean at Everything I Know Is Wrong is, in my mind, rarely, if not never,
wrong. [I think I just wore out my comma key]... His website is one of my
favorites and I really enjoy reading his posts."The
Rocketsled to Hell

The Obama campaign has shown little reluctance when it comes to silencing those with whom it disagrees. They know which media outlets are willing to ignore Obama's downside. This does not bode well for a spirit of "openness" under an Obama administration.

Are you old enough to remember when no one had ever seen the dark side of the moon? I am, and everyone who came before me knew the dark side of the moon as as a place just out of reach. We knew it was there but could never see it. It was a profound symbol of mystery, and man's limitations.

Last evening, while we were carving pumpkins, someone played a song that mentioned the dark side of the moon. It occurred to me that the younger members of our party might knot know what it meant. I asked. I got answers like, "It's dark," and "It's far away." Nothing even close.

Kyle-Anne Shiver, writing at The American Thinker, encountered the same thing regarding socialism, and why it should be loathed. Shiver attempts to explain it to those who are too young to have seen socialism in action.

The American ThinkerAnd the reasons for loathing socialism are as clear as the nose on anyone's face.

No fully-grown human being with a single ounce of self-respect ever wants to be taken care of by others. No person with dignity will tolerate being told what to do, what to think, how to work or how to be an "acceptable" person. No free man or woman will tolerate the loss of liberty in exchange for material comfort.

Many generations of Americans vehemently rejected these notions over and over again, not out of fear, but out of the kind of visceral loathing that makes a normal person wretch, gag and grab for his religion and his guns.

[...]

The choice we are facing in this election is simple. We have freedom only when we accept personal responsibility for ourselves and our children. If we want to divest ourselves from the responsibility to provide for ourselves, then we also forfeit our freedom to make our own decisions.

Great leaders have appeared from time to time to warn free people of the innate deceptiveness of the socialists' lures. Ronald Reagan saw the evil as clear as day. Reagan's "ten scariest words in the English language":

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Winston Churchill expounded further on leftist ideology:

"Let them quit these gospels of envy, hate and malice. Let them eliminate them from their politics and programmes. Let them abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality...they will increase the well-being of the world."

John McCain is a leader in the same mold as Reagan and Churchill when it comes to seeing the innate evil within the Marxist lure and its deceptive threat to real peace and any prosperity worth having. But of these three -- Reagan, Churchill and McCain -- McCain is the only one who has seen firsthand, from the inside, how it is that collective regimes may appear fair and just and unified.

Shiver is right about the reasons socialism doesn't work. It works against the basic strengths of human beings. Because of this it will always fail. But it will be tried, over and over again, because it indulges our weakness for wanting to feel good about ourselves by taking care of others—with as little personal effort as possible.

October 30, 2008

Without question, the Barack Obama
infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the
biggest promises he's made as a presidential candidate. But the very
bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his
numbers don't add up.

[...]

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq,
raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he's promised
to do "line by line," he still doesn't pay for his list.

It's obvious to even the most casual observer. But numbers—and other facts—don't seem to matter to the average Obama supporter, so I doubt this will make any difference to them. Despite the fact it comes from an Obama-friendly source like CBS.

Gallup remains steady with Obama keeping his 3 point lead over McCain using the traditional likely voter profile.

Barack Obama begins the final week of the campaign with an advantage
over John McCain in both Gallup likely voter models, up by 49% to 46%
using the traditional model and leading 51% to 44% using an expanded likely voter model.

After showing the candidates just three points apart yesterday, the
Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Thursday returns
to the range that has defined the race for over a month. It’s Obama by
five, 51% to 46%.

With just five days to go before Election Day, Obama
gained 1.1 points, as Republican McCain dropped an identical amount.
The race now stands with Obama at 50.2%, compared to 43.3% for McCain.
Another 6.5% said they are either undecided or favor another candidate.
This poll came out of the field BEFORE the airing of Obama’s 30–minute
commercial last night.

The race tightened again to 3 points Wednesday, a margin IBD/TIPP has
shown for six days and to which other polls appear to be migrating. For
example, the Rasmussen and Gallup polls, each of which had Obama up 5
points two days ago, now have him at 3. Obama still leads by 5 to 6
points among Independents, but 18% of them remain undecided.

At this time, while we are facing the possibility of an unchecked, Democratically controlled government, a famous story about congressman Davey Crockett comes to mind. The story may true, or not, either way it is an eloquent defense of a constitutional approach to government social spending.

Not Yours to Give

by

Colonel David Crockett;

Compiled by Edward S. Ellis

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and--'

"'Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.'

"This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

October 29, 2008

With the heavy lifting already done by sites like Obama Shrugged, the Mainstream Media is finally taking notice of "irregularities" in the way Senator Obama is accepting contributions.

WaPoSen. Barack Obama's
presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable
prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on
how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a
contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the
campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent
potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its
accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its
books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

[...]

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for
Obama's accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance
filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake
names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted
conservative bloggers to further test Obama's finance vetting by giving
money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore
and cannot be traced to a donor.

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that
they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who
have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are
barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

[...]

The Obama team's disclosures came in response to questions from The Washington Post
about the case of Mary T. Biskup, a retired insurance manager from
Manchester, Mo., who turned up on Obama's FEC reports as having donated
$174,800 to the campaign. Contributors are limited to giving $2,300 for
the general election.

Biskup, who had scores of Obama contributions attributed to her,
said in an interview that she never donated to the candidate. "That's
an error," she said. Moreover, she added, her credit card was never
billed for the donations, meaning someone appropriated her name and
made the contributions with another card.

In fact, both Visa and Mastercard offer Address Verification Services (AVS) as part of their front line of security services for CNP (card not present) transactions. There is really no excuse for allowing the kind of untraceable donations that the Obama campaign is accepting.

The Wall Street Journal published an internal memo which improves the way I feel about McCain's chances next Tuesday.

WSJTO: McCain Strategy Team
FROM: Bill McInturff, Lead Pollster, McCain-Palin 2008; Partner, Public Opinion Strategies
RE: State of the Race and Ballot Position
DATE: October 28, 2008

First, let’s be clear: This is a hard election to “predict.”

The historic nature of the candidates on both tickets, the huge
influx of unregulated money by the Obama campaign, the dour public
mood, and the unique level of voter interest all suggest an historic
level of turn-out, not witnessed in over 40 years.

Our models/understanding of what is coming is therefore necessarily projective, but, here is what we know for sure:

The McCain campaign has made impressive strides over the last week of tracking.

The campaign is functionally tied across the battleground states … with our numbers IMPROVING sharply over the last four tracks.

The key number in our mind is Senator Obama’s level of support and the margin difference between the two candidates.

As other public polls begin to show Senator Obama dropping below 50%
and the margin over McCain beginning to approach margin of error with a
week left, all signs say we are headed to an election that may easily
be too close to call by next Tuesday.

1. We are witnessing a significant shift across the battleground states.

The race has moved significantly over the past week, closing to
essentially tied on the last two-day roll. These gains are coming from
sub-groups it should be possible to sustain over the next week,
including:

Non-college men;

Rural voters, both men and women;

Right-to-life voters; and most encouragingly;

We are beginning to once again get over a 20% chunk of the vote among soft Democrats.

Importantly as well, our long identified target of “Walmart women” –
those women without a college degree in households under $60,000 a year
in income are also swinging back solidly in our direction.

Finally, in terms of critical improvement, even as this track shows
more Republicans voting for us than Democrats supporting Obama, we are
witnessing an impressive “pop” with Independent voters.

As I said during our Sunday briefing, we do substantially more
interviews per day than any public poll, but, given the shift we were
witnessing, it was my expectation that by Tuesday/Wednesday multiple
public polls would show the race closing. A quick glance at Real Clear
Politics would indicate this is happening by today, Tuesday, and that’s
good!

2. It is not surprising we are witnessing this closing as we
are finally having an opportunity to run a campaign that focuses on
Senator Obama’s record on taxes and his lack of experience.

We are tracking how much people have seen, read, or heard about a
number of thematic elements from both campaigns, including the false
charges about Senator McCain’s health care plan, being out of touch on
the economy, and the Obama’s campaign charges about Medicare. At the
same time, we are testing awareness of “Joe the Plumber,” Senator’s
Biden’s quote about his own running mate being so inexperienced it
invites being tested by our enemies around the world, and Obama’s
proposals that will raise federal spending by a trillion dollars.

This has been the week where “Joe the Plumber” has literally become
a household name. An astounding 59% of voters in these battleground
states have heard “a lot” about this story, 83% have heard “a lot” or
“some” about this episode.

The 59% “a lot” dwarfs the other stories/thematic elements we are tracking this week.

The campaign’s relentless focus has helped strengthen our margins on
the issue of taxes and broadened as well to the attribute of handling
the economy and jobs.

3. Our opponent is being correctly perceived as the most liberal nominee in modern times.

In our tracking, now 59% of battleground voters describe Senator
Obama as being a “liberal,” a percentage that is higher than previous
Democrat losers Gore/Kerry, and significantly higher than for President
Clinton and President Carter.

A majority (54%) of voters profile as saying Senator Obama is more liberal than they see themselves politically.

As Senator Obama’s profile as a “liberal” increases, it has helped further erode his support among key sub-groups.

4. Turn-out IS going to go through the roof.

Public Opinion Strategies has been using a 1 to 10 scale to help
look at self-described interest in the election since 1993. In 1996, in
our last track, 48% of voters described their interest in the election
as a “10.” In 2000, the last track was 54% saying “10.” Remarkably, in
2004, our last track had self-described “10s” at 75% of the electorate.

You need to understand we are witnessing a day-to-day trend of serious magnitude as self-described “10s” increase in every roll.

Last night, 81% of voters described their interest in this election as a 10! Wow.

Here is the importance of this number: We have watched as turn-out
has gone up in the last three presidential elections from roughly 96
million voters in 1996, to 104 million voters in 2000, to a whopping
122 million voters in 2004.

I now believe turn-out will begin to approach levels not seen since other comparable presidential campaigns in 1960 and 1968.

In today’s terms, that could mean breaking the barrier of 130 million voters!

There is simply no model that begins to know or predict the composition of the electorate at this level of turn-out.

My own view … and our own weights in our surveys … reflect a belief
that African American turn-out will be at historic levels, there will
be a significant boost with voters 18 to 29 years old, yet the overall
high level of turn-out will begin to mute the increase in the
percentage these sub-groups represent in the overall electorate.

5. There is more elasticity in this campaign than is imagined.

We have merged all of our interviews over the last three plus weeks
to identify undecided and respondents who “refuse to respond” on the
ballot question. This can be as high as one out of ten voters, but is
generally about eight percent (8%) of the electorate in battleground
states.

These voters might generally be non-voters in most cycles. But, in
this cycle, 61% describe their interest in the election as a 10. This
is higher than the last track among ALL voters in 1996 and 2000.

These voters are older, downscale, more rural, and are certainly
economically stressed. They are quite negative about the direction of
country and seek change. They voted for Bush over Kerry by a margin of
47% to 24% and this partisan advantage is a critical element to
understanding our capacity to “get” these voters.

They have significant hesitations about Senator Obama’s experience and judgment.

Given an Obama TV media barrage we have not witnessed since the last
candidate to run without public financing, Richard Nixon in 1972, and
the daily drumbeat about Obama’s chances, given their demographics, it
is my sense these voters WILL vote in this election and WILL break
decisively in our direction.

These undecided/refuse to respond voters breaking decisively against
Senator Obama mirrors the pattern of the last two months of the
Democrat primary season.

When they do break, I believe they will add a net three plus points to our margins.

6. I am becoming more and more convinced Senator Obama “gets what he gets in the tracking.”

Typically a Republican candidate trails among African Americans on a
survey by a margin of something like 78% to 14%. As a firm, we
consistently warn our clients that on Election Day, they will
underperform their polling margins with African American voters. If
their tracking says 78% - 18%, they should expect to only carry 8% of
the African American vote, as the Democrat candidate will typically
carry more than 90% of the African American vote.

Senator Obama’s numbers are different than anything we have ever seen before among African Americans.

In most polls, McCain is losing these African American voters by margins like 97% to 1%.

This means when you see Senator Obama’s number in a survey, it
already reflects his significant and full support among African
American voters.

Functionally, this means the only undecided/refuse to respond voters are white and Latino.

So, in a state like Indiana where he has recently “led” Senator
McCain, in most tracks, Senator Obama is at 46% to 47% of the vote.

I am becoming increasingly persuaded it will be very difficult for
Senator Obama to perform much above his percentage of the vote in a
state. This puts any number of historically red states very much “in
play” and MUCH more competitive than is generally believed by the
media. But critically, as Obama drops below 50% in other blue states,
some of these states may also becoming back in play as well.

In a nutshell: their internal polling shows a "tied" race with McCain trending up. But the results are difficult to predict.

There are so many holes in the theory that carbon dioxide is responsible for Global Warming that I'm not going to go into them. You can look at my Global Warming and Science archives for more climate change information. Today, we are going to focus on the main hole in Global Warming theory: it's very likely that there isn't any Global Warming.

Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says,
"It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of
global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His
examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries
shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and
solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at
all with CO2."

An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric
sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made
global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2
emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2
concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption
of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."

While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite
scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John
Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt
the True Believers a devastating blow last month.

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's
eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature
readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr.
Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a
slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot
be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and
Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in
the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar
activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has
disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.

Here is the chart that is referred to. It shows that global temperatures are falling—and have been since 2005—and that we are at the same temperature as we were in 1979. Personally I have enjoyed the gradual warming that occurred over the last 20 years and would be sad to see it go.